‘It was in 1982,’ said Mallarino. ‘I got tired of Bogotá, that’s all, I got tired of a lot of things. I bought this house and two dogs, two German shepherds, a male and a female, whose puppies are the ones I have now. The ones with stars on their foreheads, all identical. Of course not all of them: I kept two and sold the rest, they eat as much as twenty people and mine are as big as horses, I don’t know if you saw them.’ Samanta Leal said yes, she’d seen them and they’d scared her a little, to tell the truth. ‘No, they’re not scary,’ said Mallarino. ‘Don’t put this in the interview, but my dogs are the most cowardly creatures on earth: they’re no good at guarding anything.’
And Samanta: ‘I won’t. I promise. 1982, you said?’
And Mallarino: ‘Yes, that’s right. 1982, around the middle of the year. It’s cold, but I like the cold. The plateau begins near here, you know. A little bit higher up the mountain and there it starts.’
Samanta had taken three things out of her aquamarine handbag: a dull aluminium lighter, a pocket notebook and a pen the same colour as the handbag. She set the lighter on the table, and Mallarino realized it wasn’t a lighter but a tiny digital recorder. He made some comment about it — ‘In my day people just took notes,’ perhaps, or perhaps ‘Journalists don’t trust their own memories any more’ — and Samanta asked him how he got along with the new technologies, if he had become accustomed to using digital aids. ‘Never,’ said Mallarino. ‘I don’t like them. I don’t even make digital corrections, which is something many do. I don’t. I draw by hand, and what comes out is what goes out. Digital technologies make everything boring, predictable, monotonous. One can get bored with this trade, señorita, and you have to invent tricks so that doesn’t happen. For example, I sometimes challenge myself to draw an entire cartoon without lifting my hand off the paper, or drawing in the background, behind the main scene, a miniature reproduction of a masterpiece. People don’t stop to wonder why behind Chávez there might be a Rembrandt or a Rafael. . So, no, don’t ask me about technology. It’s not for me.’
‘And for sending them?’
‘What about sending them?’
‘Don’t you use a computer?’
‘I don’t have a computer. I don’t use the internet, I don’t have email. Didn’t you know? I’m famous for that: absurdly famous, if you want my opinion. I don’t know what’s so strange about this. I have six or seven magazine subscriptions in three languages: tons of paper that I never finish reading. With that and the television I have enough to keep me informed. I have cable, it’s true, I have more news channels than I need, and I can even press pause to see someone’s face better.’
‘But then how do you send them? How do you send the cartoons?’
‘At first I used to take them in personally, of course. Then I started to use a fax machine, I used it for years. I still use it to communicate with people. That machine is my personal maiclass="underline" if you want to write to me, you can do so by fax, and I’ll answer you by fax. It’s quite simple. But I used to use it to send in my cartoons. It didn’t work. It broke up my lines, you know? Worried friends used to calclass="underline" “Are you ill? Is something wrong? Your lines aren’t steady.” That’s when they started to pick them up.’
‘Who?’
‘The newspaper sends a courier. They’ve always had a courier driving around the city picking up and dropping off papers, it’s called La Chiva. And when they come to collect my drawing, they call it La Chiva de Mallarino.’
‘But you live far away,’ said Samanta. ‘They’d have to cross the entire city. They come as far as this?’
‘They’re very kind,’ said Mallarino.
‘They spoil you,’ said Samanta.
‘I suppose so,’ said Mallarino.
‘It must be that you’re important,’ said Samanta with a smile.
‘Must be.’
‘And how does it feel?’
‘How does what feel?’
‘Being important. Being a country’s conscience.’
‘Look,’ said Mallarino, ‘we live in confusing times. Our leaders aren’t leading anything, much less telling us what’s going on. That’s where I come in. I tell people what’s going on. The important thing in our society is not what goes on, but who tells us what’s going on. Are we going to allow ourselves to be told only by politicians? That would be suicide, national suicide. No, we can’t rely on them, we can’t be satisfied with their version. We need to look for another version, from other people with other interests: from humanists. That’s what I am: a humanist. I’m not a graphic jokester. I’m not a cartoon sketcher. I am a satirical illustrator. It has its risks as well, of course. The risk of turning into a social analgesic: the things I draw become more comprehensible, more easily assimilated. It hurts us less to confront them. I don’t want my drawings to do that, of course I don’t. But I’m not sure it can be avoided.’
Samanta took down the dictation diligently. Mallarino watched her copying it down in her notebook and reading over what she’d written with her big eyes even beneath the roof of her serious brow. ‘Could we go to your studio?’ she asked, and Mallarino nodded. He pointed towards a darkened corridor and, at the end of the corridor, some steps of polished wood; he let her go ahead of him, in part out of chivalry, in part to observe the shape of her body through her skirt as she started up the steps. Mallarino had given many interviews lately, but this time, for some reason, was different: this time he wanted to talk. He felt loquacious, communicative, open and prepared to reveal himself. Perhaps it was the recent impression of his night with Magdalena, or perhaps the notion that his life, from this morning on, was a different life, but suddenly he’d started telling anecdotes, to do what he never did: talk about himself. He spoke of the day when a mayor changed his mind after a drawing was finished, and Mallarino resolved the matter by drawing another speech bubble with three short words: Or maybe not. He spoke of the businessman who once called him to ask him to stop drawing him the way he used to look, now that he’d bought new glasses and had his protruding teeth fixed, but Mallarino kept drawing him the same way: wasn’t it unfair? ‘One time nothing occurred to me,’ said Mallarino. ‘It’s unusual, but it happens. I drew myself with a cup of coffee, with a blank piece of paper and a thought bubble with the light bulb of ideas completely dark. I sent the editor a note saying look, nothing has occurred to me. I have to submit the cartoon and not a single idea has occurred to me. I’m sorry. You decide whether to publish it or not. The cartoon was published. The next day I began to receive congratulatory calls. Everybody was congratulating me. It turns out the day before there was a massive power cut in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of Medellín. The cartoon was interpreted as criticizing the indolence of the administration, etc. I never told them the truth.’